Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt
by FlandersMare
Summary: Each sect of the magical folk had their heroes in the final days of the war. Wizards, witches, goblins, house elves. The Fountain of Magical Brethren, however gilded and naive, did have a core of the most basic and true of metals.
1. Chapter 1

A.N. Hello, gonna try my hand at disclaimers and such this time. Various things do not belong to me, but namely the world of Harry Potter and the title. The title is the motto of the Royal Artillery of the British Army of which the regiments of the Royal Horse Artillery are a part, and means 'Wherever right and glory leads'. The significance of the Horse Artillery will hopefully become apparent. As for the world of Harry Potter, it is not mine, belongs to one J.. If it was mine there would have been several major alterations to the end battle but the epicness that is Mrs Molly Weasley would have remained just that, epic. - DFF

Chapter One

Infiltrating the harbour area

"If you can't control that beast McNair, then it will have to be dealt with!"

"Yes Master, now settle down, ya nag!"

The struggle taking place at the clearing's edge did not abate at Voldemort's command. The captive's eyes seemed shine brighter and her straining at her ill-effective bonds became more desperate.

"Assist him!" Voldemort's lazy cold voice, directed at no one, sent a chill through the hostage's skin. McNair called to a few Death Eaters, but she didn't listen; she had the upper hand whilst there was only one. Leaping to her full height, she lashed out at a pair of clammy hands straying too close to her. A red spell leapt from the darkness and exploded over her side, searing the skin there.

Spinning round, deftly avoiding the ropes being thrown around her, she smiled in grim satisfaction as her legs made contact with the offending body, sending it slamming into a tree. There was a wet cracking sound. Seeing an opportunity, she darted forwards, stooping to retrieve her only weapon which had been tossed aside by her captors. Hagrid's warning cry and the feel of rope around her neck didn't register, until she had the air cut from her.

"Hold still little filly," McNair grunted as he hauled on the rope in his grip. The prisoner staggered as the rope tightened around her throat, dragging her over backwards. With a strangled cry, the figure crumpled onto the forest floor. McNair crouched over her, pressing the tip of his wand against her cheek, "and I won't have to do anything drastic!" Wincing at the saliva hitting her face, she bared her teeth in the best defiant act she could. Her quiver and bow lay some ten meters off, along with four cloaked figures, each sporting the same pheasant feather arrow fights in their necks.

"McNair, you fool." Voldemort's voice was cold and scathing. He advanced on the pair, robes slivering along the leaf-strewn floor. "You know no good spell will work on a creature like this. Did you not see Avery's stunner only burn it's flesh? No, you must resort to primitive force when dealing with mixed, contaminated blood." Voldemort conjured ropes and leather straps from thin air. He handed them to approaching Death Eaters, emboldened now that the threat was on the floor.

"Cowards!" Hagrid yelled from his bonds at the other end of the clearing. "You'll only take 'er on when she's outnumbered and on the floor. And keep yer 'ands off 'er!" She shuddered and snarled as a hand ghosted over her chest as leather straps were wrapped round her arms, pinning them to her sides.

"He did say 'primitive force', remember." McNair leered as he tightened a belt, crushing the breath from her and cutting into her arms. "Now be a good little pony, and the trotting up won't be too strenuous." It wasn't the pain that scared her, but the way McNair's eyes were glistening in the poor light, left no doubt the double meaning in his words. The ropes around her legs tightened, drawing them together.

The prisoner seemed to wilt as she felt a sudden sickness take her. _What were they? What had happened to these people?_ Her head reeled as a halter was wrestled over her face and tugged by no less than four men. She was dragged by her shaking legs, and hauled towards the tree where Hagrid was bound. She closed her eyes and attempted to steady her breathing, the moist, rotten smell of the debris littering the clearing filling her lungs, making her cough. The Death Eaters tethered the ends of her ropes to the roots of the same tree as Hagrid. The hooded figures retreated into the shadows, disturbing the leaf litter as the scurried back to the dark.

"Dierdre? Dierdre, are you all right? C'mon girl, speak to me." Hagrid's low, scared voice reached her before she felt his straining fingers brushing her dark head.

"Yes, yes I'm…" she couldn't finish it, how in the world could she be described as _all right_. "I'm here."

"I know you are girl, I know," came Hagrid's soft reply.

Dierdre raised herself a few inches off the forest floor, as best she could, bound as she was. She propped her back up against his legs, muttering apologies as she moved, and tucked her legs underneath herself. She winced as the cords cut into her. Her wary fidgeting continued until her back was against the rough bark of the horse chestnut.

For a minute or so she sat still, letting her winded lungs recover and her spinning mind still. "Ruebus, had you heard from him? Was he well? Was he planning to fight?" Her voice was strained with the effort.

"I 'aven't seen the castle for weeks Dierdre. I dunno 'ow he is. But last time I 'eard, Trelawney was still hiding 'im, keeping 'im safe. Good thing to, God knows what them Carrows would 'ave done to 'im if he was found."

"Ruebus… please… don't." Her mind was flooded by images of the last time she had seen him in common company. That hostility had been his own kind, the Gods help him if those twisted wizards found him.

Dierdre forced her head back against the tree and looked timidly up into the night's sky, as though afraid of what she would see there. It seemed to mock her with it's gently brewing manner, Mars so vivid it seemed to pulsate against the black backdrop. How many times had the two of them looked up at the same yet different stars, and when was the last time she'd felt him lie beside her, lazily outlining elusive constellations with his arm lifted skywards?

It was the most desperate she had ever felt. All she could do was _sit_ here, whilst he was inside that castle, fighting, _dieing_ for all she knew. She should have stayed with the herd, should have waited for her brother to come to his senses and aid the castle's defenders, should have waited for the order to attack.

It wouldn't have come. Bane wouldn't spill his people's blood in the name of the dead man, the man who had preserved their way of life in this forest for decades whilst the Ministry shaved land again and again from their 'reserves' of dead ground. This was a wizard's war, he'd said.

But she was damned if she was to let Firenze fight in their name without her.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"You weren't."

Dierdre was ripped from her misery as the two words rippled through the clearing, turning ever head to the figure of a youth emerging from the darkness. He seemed so battle weary he looked frayed at the edges. His face seemed too old for the rest of him. Coupled with the fire light, it gave him a wraithlike presence and no one present was sure if he was really there. The scene shattered as the sea of black rolled into life, encircling the fire and the two figures.

"HARRY! NO!" Ruebus thrashed against his bounds as the tide of Death Eaters cut off the two adversaries onto their own island of firelight. Dierdre ducked, cowering from the rain of debris falling from the chestnut. "NO! NO! HARRY, WHAT'RE YEH -?"

Dierdre couldn't discern Ruebus' words, nor the spell that silenced him. All she could hear was her own the blood pounding in her ears. So, this was Harry Potter; the Chosen One. She studied him with a horrified fascination, before the wall of bodies could obscure him from her view. He didn't look like a hero; he didn't even look prepared to defend himself. His stance was drained and the empty hands hung limp at his sides. But his face was what scared Dierdre.

Firenze had told her of a scared little boy, pale and messy haired, unaware of what he meant of the world. Hagrid had told her the spitting image of his father, a son James would be proud of. Lately she'd met Luna, Neville and Ginevra, the untiring lieutenants of the resistance. She'd often found them in the bowels of the forest for their pains. The picture they'd painted between them now seemed the most accurate. There, in those eyes, she saw the experienced teacher, the supportive friend, and the flawed lover. Then the wall closed and he was gone.

"Harry Potter," the soft voice floated over the still forms of the Death Eaters, soft as flames. "The boy who lived."

A moment's silence followed, freezing the scene as the tension set like resin. Suddenly, with a flurry of movement, so many things happened, Dierdre could barely keep up. The shriek of a spell, the mingling of green and white light, a furious hissing drowned by a shrill cry of a bird, and two heavy thuds, separated by the slimmest instant.

Then the fire flared in the centre, sending the Death Eaters scurrying back, as the flames collected and the soared. The air suddenly scorched, as though the vents of a crucible had been opened. Dierdre's yell was forced back down her throat as the hot air smothered everyone and she turned her face into the cool bark of the tree as a source-less gale blow her dark hair around her.

As suddenly as it had come, the wind dropped. Panting, she opened her eyes and turned to squint through the returning darkness. There were two figures lying immobile on the forest floor.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Dierdre's mind was nothing but a confused buzz as she tried to comprehend what was happening in front of her. Dierdre and her kind might have been excluded from the politics and concerns of wizards, but they hadn't needed to put their ears to the ground to understand what had been happening outside their forest.

Her eyes darted skywards, looking for an explanation. Theirs were gifts that wizards couldn't comprehend, all from the generosity of the earth. Theirs were the stars, and it was surprising how much of a gossip the moon and Uranus could be. Sparing the two on the ground another quick glance, Dierdre looked up again. The tempestuous dance between Mars and Venus had stilled and the latter had paled to a milky glow, while Mars flicked then flared.

"Oh sweet Chiron, no!"

There was movement from the fireside again. Mutterings, whispers and murmured adorations. She turned her head to see the skeletal form hiss and recoil from offered hands whilst the boy lay ignored. It was hardly surprise the Death Eaters seemed unwilling to approach to prone figure. If their Dark Lord could hardly bare to touch him even with the shared blood, he was lethal to the mere mortals that they were.

The crowd of black recoiled a little as their leader rose shakily to his feet and began barking demands. Dierde's eyes flicked back and forth between Voldemort and the boy's prone figure. Something had to happen, anything. No one dared move and it was clear that something of Voldemort's plans had gone wrong. Bellatrix stayed close, "My lord let me". The ill-tempered reply sent her scuttling into the wall of black figures.

"The boy, is he dead?"

Every pair of eyes turned to one Harry Potter, lying sprawled on the leaf litter strewn ground. He hadn't moved, arms thrown awkwardly behind him, face pressed into the ground. There was no shifting of his shoulders or flanks to indicate breathing, there was nothing. Dierde's own breathe became shallow as her throat tightened with panic.

"You!" Dierde flinched as Voldemort struck one of his followers, a gaunt looking blonde woman, who looked like she would lose a few teeth if her jaw tightened any further. The woman screamed as the curse hit her, stumbling out of file. She straightened herself on shaking legs and faced Voldemort. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."

The woman staggered forward towards the body… "The boy!" Dierde screamed in her own head. "He's not… he can't… Get up child, we still need you!" As the woman tripped past her, Dierde drew her legs closer to herself, ready to kick out if she got too near to the Chestnut tree. The woman paid no heed to them though. Wide, glazed eyes fixed only on Harry. Dierde craned her neck to look up at Hagrid only to see he wore a similar expression, eyes blank and staring, skin white beneath the wild hair.

The woman was slow and shaking in her examination of the boy, her hands fumbling whilst her bowed head veiling his face with her hair. The tension emanating from the surrounding Death Eaters was painful, a silence that seemed to press on the eardrums and eyeballs.

Finally, inhaling deeply, the woman straightened. Tossing back her head she called in a dispassionate voice. "He is dead".

The reaction was immediate and riddled with relief. The yells and cheers are deafening and the stamping caused acorns and chestnuts to jump of the forest floor. Dierde shrieked as spells exploded overhead and the tree trembled as Hagrid's knees collapsed underneath him.

"You see!" Voldemort's voice ricocheted around the clearing, high and piercing over the crowd. "Harry Potter is dead by my hand," he cried, hands shaking as he lifted them high. "And no man alive can threaten me now! Watch! Crucio!"

Dierde watched in horror as the limp body of Harry Potter was tossed around the clearing as effectively as a rag doll, hitting the ground repeatedly with dull thumps. She wailed pitifully as in the last careless hurl, the boy's glasses slid from his face and clattered against her bound legs. He came to rest, face down again, a few feet from their tree. Hagrid was shaking with sobs, the tree creaking as he strained against his bonds trying to get to him.

"Now," Voldemort's voice was shrill, his thin chest heaving as he shock with triumph. "We go to the castle, and show them what has become of their hero." The Death Eaters crowed with at the announcement, many still shooting spells into night's sky. "Who shall drag the body? No.. Wait."

The Death Eaters quietened for a moment, before erupting again into howls of laughter. Voldemort moved forward, wand outstretched. With a slight flick of his wrist, the ropes holding Hagrid up against the tree snapped and Hagrid fell to his knees before the still body on the ground. Dierde wined and fought her bonds as Hagrid refused to move. There was a whip crack noise and a shower of red sparks across the right side of Hagrid's head sent him forward onto his hands.

"You carry him," Voldemort crowed, his entire frame vibrating with some fragile energy. "He will be nice and visible in your arms, will he not?" The reptilian face was stretched in an obscene grin. "Pick up your little friend, Hagrid." A whoop went up from the crowd again as Hagrid picked himself up even as his shoulders shock. "And the glasses, put on the glasses, he must be recognizable! "

A pair of Death Eaters darted forward to pick up the boy's glasses and slam them back onto his face. "Get away from him!" Dierdre shrieked at them as Hagrid let out a wailing roar of anger as he scooped up the boy, holding him tight to his chest and away from those who felt the need to wait until the boy was death before facing him.

"Ah," Voldemort's voice was almost lyrical and it sent ice down the length of Dierdre's spine. "What better way to lead the triumphant march." He'd left the lip of the hollow where he'd been carried to recover and was now sweeping towards the Chestnut where Dierdre was still bound, malicious glee burn in the eyes of the pale face as he towered over her. Dierdre could do little more than stare defiantly back at him, teeth bared and he chuckled as he lent down into her space. "Let us show the donkies, exactly, where they belong."


End file.
